Life & Work with Jeffrey Henderson of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeffrey Henderson.

Hi Jeffrey, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve always been an artist. I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t going back and forth between illustration, music and performance.. I think a big part of that was an accident I had as a kid. On my 7th birthday, I was hit by a truck on my brand-new bike and it was pretty bad. I was in a coma for a while and then, even after I got out of the hospital, full recovery took a long time. I was bedridden, so my Mom and Grandmother set me up on the couch in the living room, and that was my whole world for a while growing up. They both understood how tough it was for me to not be able go outside, so they brought the world to me: stacks of comic books and records of all kinds, pencils and sketch pads and finally, an acoustic guitar. My Mom wasn’t a musician, but she had great- and eclectic- taste in music. We’d sit and just listen to records for hours at a time: everything from The Beatles to Stan Getz to Debussy to Glen Campbell to Kiss to Leontyne Price’s Madame Butterfly and back again. Eventually I started learning how to sing and play what I heard. My grandmother constantly read books and comics with me as well, and I’d study the art like I was in school. I started making my own comics and even storyboarding shows and movies I saw on TV. Eventually, I made a full recovery and was able to be a normal kid again, but all that stuff stuck with me and defines my creative and professional life to this day. While I was still in high school, I took night courses at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and after a while, started playing in bands and drawing comics full time, bouncing back and forth between the two.

That path eventually landed me in Las Vegas of all places, but I was at a bit of a crossroads. After all those years of plugging away, I was offered my first pro comic gigs at the same time my band got offered a record deal and I had to choose, at least for a while. I chose music and we got the deal. Unfortunately, (and without getting into all the boring specifics), the deal went bust and I moved to LA. I’ve been here ever since.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, not at all. Aside from the aforementioned accident and losing the record deal, there’s been so many setbacks, close calls and heartbreaking disappointments it’s hard to even keep track anymore. Years ago now, right as things were really ready to blow up for me professionally here in LA, my family suffered a series of really terrible losses. Just one after the other, like dominoes falling. In a pretty short period of time. I don’t care who you are, even one tragedy like that can alter the trajectory of your life… but so many in a row really changed the course of things for me and my family for a long time.

We’re all given a finite amount of time on this beautiful little blue marble and I want to spend mine being creative and fighting for what I love and believe in. I know it can sound like a bit of a greeting card cliche, but it really is about how much you take, keep going and not let it all turn you into a monster or a basket case. How much of yourself you can maintain in the face of really difficult times. It’s easy to be happy and hopeful when everything’s great, but who are you with all that stripped away?

So, given everything, I’m pretty pragmatic about it all at this point. I look at time as currency, and I’d argue it’s the only currency that really matters, as it’s the only thing in the universe that can never be replaced. Personally, I believe that life isn’t all that complicated. It really boils down to one, simple thing: you make choices and you live with the consequences…. so choose wisely.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’ve always been an artist. I’ve been juggling multiple creative disciplines my whole life. Since I’ve been in LA, I’ve been very fortunate to have built a career as a professional storyboard artist. I’ve worked on some incredible projects with some amazing directors including The Dark Knight and Inception with Christopher Nolan, The Boys and Predator/Badlands with Dan Trachtenberg and a number of projects with the great Sam Raimi, to name just a few. I also wrote, directed and starred in an award-winning Star Wars short for LucasFilm. I’ve won or placed in a number of screenwriting competitions and I do some acting and voice over stuff as well… anything to stay busy and creative.

I also have a new record coming out that I’m really excited about. Really put a lot into it. I’ve been working on a big launch to support it, really can’t wait to get it out there! I’ve been doing showcases both here in LA and in Las Vegas that have been very well received so far.

With all that said, I feel like almost all my work, regardless of the discipline, goes back to storytelling. That’s what’s right under the surface of all this stuff. Like storyboarding for example, it’s not about really drawing. It’s about storytelling… we’re the only ones in a whole production with the word ‘story’ in our job title. Storytelling is the real discipline. Drawing’s just the means to that end. Songwriting, lyrics, acting, it all goes back to that for me.

I’d say I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve been able to just keep a roof over my head and build and maintain a life and career as an artist. Things are tough for most everyone these days, especially here in my beloved Los Angeles, but I’m still standing… which, all things considered, is pretty remarkable.

What sets me apart from others? Have no idea. Don’t know if that’s for me to decide. I will say that, although I don’t take myself that seriously, I take what I do very seriously. I have an almost monastic devotion to my craft and a work ethic that borders on sociopathic, but the truth is that I just love the feeling of creating something from nothing, and that’s held me in good stead most of my life…

And it makes me feel like I have mutant superpowers sometimes, which is awesome.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I mentioned the accident earlier, that was a big defining part of it. My parents split up when I was really little, and the dynamic was pretty strange: my Dad was a very successful commercial director in NYC, but I lived with my Mom and Grandmother in a not-great part of Baltimore, where I grew up. Me and my brother would go visit my Dad and it was surreal to us. Very upscale, beautiful condo in the city, being on set when he was doing a shoot, lavish dinners, etc… and then we’d go back home and get snapped back to reality. Baltimore was very much the opposite. We were street kids. Not complaining, I’m actually really grateful I grew up where and how I did, (and I’ll always have a deep affection for Baltimore hun), but the back and forth between those two worlds was definitely more than a little… weird.

I’ve always wanted to live in LA. Even when I was little, stuck in that living room all that time after the accident, I’d dream of what Los Angeles was. I didn’t even think it was a real place; thought it was like Valhalla, or the Elysium Fields or something, where the people were beautiful, the sun was always out, there were blue skies and palm trees and many of my favorite shows, movies and musicians were all from this perfect, mythological wonderland. I’m grateful that, even after all the time I’ve been here, I’ve managed to hold on to that sense of possibility.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.planethenderson.com
• Instagram: @planethenderson
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/planethenderson

Image Credits
David Zaugh